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Also to underline the importance of acquiring at least one top class (world class actually) defender and a decent goalie is underlined by the fact that the one season we had Chris Pronger playing in front of Roloson we all but won the Stanley Cup.
As much as I like RNH, I would trade him (if we could) for a top class defender, and if we did that, we could then move either Nurse or Larsson out (perhaps with a pick or a prospect) and get a goalie that does not have holes in his gloves. Do we really want to lose RNH or one of our best defenders? No, not really, but something has to be done to shake this team up.

Playing on their knees for sure. I thought Talbot was bad on that score, but Kosk is going in the exact same direction. To be honest, in the past 25 years, I would only mention three of our goalies who I was really happy with, Curtis Joseph the best of the lot by a long way, Roloson (for a shorter period of time), and I guess also for a period of time Tommy Salo. I don't know what the stats of those three were like, but just going off memory and my vision of how they played.
Did we have a better defence in front of those goalies, well lets be honest again, we couldn't have had worse than we have currently or for the past several seasons.
Until the defence of the Oilers gets fixed (and by that I don't just mean the six official defenders, I am not sure we can judge whether a goalie is any good or not.
Is it possible that all the goalies we have had since the Joseph/Roloson/Salo era have all been crap or is it that we have consistently had a weak defensive mentality as a team overall? My concern is that if Yawney and Hitchcock can't improve our ability to stop the puck ending up in our net, who the hell can?

In theory I totally agree, however, the Condor players who have come up this season have not impressed all that much.
Jones...…..to me never looked that good, had a mistake in him in every game, although Hitch thought so but if that was the case how come he got sent down again?
Yammo…………..one goal in I don't know how many games for the Oilers, yet to impress...….again another favourite of KH.
JP (I know he is injured currently and out for the season most likely) but is he one we can seriously expect better from next season? A big question mark for me.
Currie...…….I guess he works hard but I must be missing something as I can't see that he is making much of an impression during games.
Gambardello………….see Currie remarks...…..again not exactly taking the NHL by storm.
Malone...………..again, enough said...….doesn't look as though he can help in the NHL.
Then there is the guy who sings and plays the guitar...…..can't think of his name so as you can see he is another one that made a big impression on me.
I hope I am wrong with some of the above, that's all I can say.

Agreed, and worse than that, in recent seasons we have converted 4 first round picks (2 of them # 1 picks) into:
Hall for Larsson,
Yakupov for a 3rd pick (can't recall the player we actually selected),
Eberle for Gagner,
and JP for...…….lets be honest we ain't going to get much are we?
And that isn't counting the one we gave up for Reinhart.(sp),
So all we have left for five first round picks is one second line defender (in a good team) and a player fighting for his NHL career who was in the minors before we traded for him.
JP I guess is the "wild card" but I don't think we need to be holding our breath waiting in anticipation for him.
The jury is still out on Yammo as yet, but could this be a sixth 1st round pick down the drain?

Fair enough and you have some good points there, however, holding out for Nylander with the likes of Matthews, Tavares, Marner, Khadri, and several other good young players to fall back on in his absence (Kapanen, Johnson as examples) is one thing, holding out for Drai with (here is a much shorter list) McD and RNH to fall back on, is a whole different ball game or puck game shall we say.
If the oilers had gone as long without Leon in the team as Toronto did without Nylander, we would truly have been screwed and would have been out of the play off picture way earlier than is the case now. So brave words johhny to play poker with Drai and his agent last summer, but PC's hands were tied (if we are being honest here) he had to commit to Leon.

Hitch has come in for quite a lot of criticism by some on here, (and in the media by the likes of Kypreos who achieved not much in his career), he has been referred to as a dinosaur, can't handle young millionaire players etc, but one thing he did say I think rings true with this team...……."the coaches can't want it more than the players". And yes, I know he back tracked on that statement later, but probably only because Bob Nic or someone else asked or told him so to do.
Bottom line is these players (the majority at least) don't want it enough, plain as day to see when it really matters, and it mattered last night.

Still no answer as to what would you do if you had been PC and offered less than the 8.5m (which for all we know PC may have done) and Drai refused to sign?
You are conveniently refusing to answer that question. For all you and I know, PC may have offered 7.8m, which according to what you now say would have been acceptable, and Drai refused to sign, demanding $8.5m. So again, if that was the case, what is PC's next move?
And for you to say the performance of either player after the contracts is irrelevant is your opinion which you of course are entitled to.
My opinion is that Drai was and is well worth the 8.5 and with each passing season that will become more and more obvious, and that Dubas did not win big time with Nylander.
You got one thing right, you can't help me, but thanks for trying.

I agree, Klef is just unlucky. Like Russell, although obviously not as successful at it, Oscar gets his body in line with the puck, sooner or later it is going to hit him in a vulnerable part of his body. I am thinking Russell has been doing it for so long he must have a technique that works for him in terms of not incurring serious injury. As much as I admire and respect Russell for that, he isn't worth what we are paying him which I think is on a par with Klefbom, but I would have to check that out.
Klef $4,167,000 until 22/23, what a great contract for the Oilers that is.
Russell $4,000,000 AAV until the end of 20/21, but a bit confusing as it also says total salary $2.5m for the last year. $1.5m base + presumably $1.0m bonus. Contract gets better as the seasons pass, but then again presumably so will Russell's performance?

I guess Klef could always do what Eberle used to do...……..jump out of the way of an oncoming puck (or opposition player come to think of it). Personally I will never criticise directly or indirectly any player who "takes one for the team" even if his technique is flawed, it takes courage as we all know, and Klef has that and that is good enough for me.

You could be right, but we would get a better winger for Nurse than for either Jones or Bear is my point. I know Hitch raved about Jones, but all I saw for most of the time he was up with the big boys was one mistake after another. And if I saw that, so would any GM we approached to trade him to, and we would end up with another Reider or that guy we got from Nashville who turned up for training late one day...…………...he made such a big impression on my I can't even remember his name.

I am too embarrassed to include Larsson, we have lost enough trades in the past few seasons without advertising yet another one .
OK, go on then, lets get shut, but will NJ send Taylor Hall back this way?

Losing Nurse unlike losing Schultz for an example, wouldn't really be "giving up on him", especially if we dealt with a team who was short on gritty defenders but had a surplus of scoring forwards. Sometimes to improve the overall results, we have to lose a player to gain a player that is required more than the one we are losing. I am pretty sure that New York Rangers fans are glad they "gave up on Spooner" and got Strome in return

My point being that I think (not really important what I think of course) that with a core of Klefbom, Sekera and Larson, plus possibly one other defender that we could bring in either as a UFA or via a trade, that Nurse could/should in a trade bring in a goal scorer, and that with the several younger players we have "waiting in the wings" is expendable for the Oilers as they are currently built.
Benning and Russel will be no great loss if we are looking for defenders who can actually keep on their skates, not get bullied off the puck, win a few board battles, and actually pass the puck to a forward (preferably one of ours) quickly. The alternative is to play in 2019/20 with this same inept defence. Benning was a lost cause a long time ago, Russell gives effort and blocks pucks but little else, Nurse could improve the team by being used in a trade for a goal scorer. Hope this helps.

Still not got it eh Fogs? I never wrote that I believed in "a miracle" or winning the lottery...……..here again for you is what I wrote:
"I believe I probably won't win the lottery". So what did I believe in? The answer is the opposite of what you keep repeating. I never wrote that I believed in anything, other than I PROBABLY would not win the lottery.
eg: I believed we would probably not be able to draft Connor McDavid back whenever we did, but I sure wished we could. And we did
My wish came true, but my belief did not. Two different words with two different meanings and I promise not to respond to any more posts on this issue. Thank you.